<p>Both Clayleas and ID raise important points as to the usefulness of these kinds of anonymous, mass-mailed email surveys. I would be less concerned about someone trying to stuff the ballot box, and more interested in who opted to take the survey, and why. For example, my daughter didn’t bother with the survey. Why not ?, I asked. Well, she said, I get all kinds of junk in my emailbox, and I have too many other things on my plate. I don’t see a big problem, and I’m busy. </p>
<p>So…is she typical of the 1/2 of the student body that didn’t take the survey? Did half the students not respond because the don’t see a problem, or is it that the other students didn’t respond because they were passed out after their daily round of “binge drinking?” [facetious remark]. We don’t know. We also don’t know how many of the respondents may have been pranksters, or otherwise atypical of students interested in the subject.</p>
<p>As for bias…and I mean that in the non-judgemental scientific sense…I think that the large amount of attention paid to drinking at Williams since the incident in 2001 where a high school prospect drank herself into a near-coma has definitely colored any discussion of alcohol on the campus. That incident occurred during the first semester of Morty Schapiro’s presidency, and by his own admission, turned him into an obsessive crusader on the subject of campus drinking. I don’t think that there is anything unique about the alcohol culture at Williams College, but I do think that their public and pervasive effort to ensure that students don’t hurt themselves while drinking may be unique.</p>